


Intentions

by hopeless_romantic_spoonie, yespolkadot_kitty



Series: As You Are [12]
Category: Doctor Strange (2016), The Avengers (Marvel Movies), Thor (Movies)
Genre: F/M, Fluff, Grumpy Loki, a lot of nonsense really, loki is not having it, the Avengers give advice
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-09-20
Updated: 2019-09-20
Packaged: 2020-10-24 22:16:22
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,364
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20713406
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/hopeless_romantic_spoonie/pseuds/hopeless_romantic_spoonie, https://archiveofourown.org/users/yespolkadot_kitty/pseuds/yespolkadot_kitty
Summary: The friendly neighbourhood Avengers are here again, with their advice. Loki is not loving it.





	Intentions

**Author's Note:**

> Written with my lovely pal @hopelessromanticspoonie

It started with his brother.

Loki was measuring out lucky charms - Midgard did have some truly  _ delightful _ breakfast foods, it turned out, and he had an excuse to eat them without many witnesses since he knew where the Spider boy kept the box - when Thor strolled in, tossing Mjolnir as if she weighed nothing.

Loki’s eyes narrowed and he closed the cereal box. Thor was gearing up to say something. Whenever his brother  _ acted _ nonchalant (Thor was the  _ worst _ actor) it was bad news for someone. Usually Loki.

Thor set Mjolnir down on the kitchen counter. The sky behind his brother, through the huge, crystal clear window of Stark Tower, rolled with clouds on a slate grey sky, matching Loki’s mood perfectly.

“Brother,” Thor began.

Loki scooped up his bowl of lucky charms and leaned back against the counter. “This ought to be entertaining.”

“Must you?” Thor stuck his hands into the pockets of his grey hoodie, his habitual non-Avenging wear, these days. “Is everything a joke to you? Is  _ she? _ ”

Rage bubbled up and Loki’s jaw clenched. “You overstep your mark,  _ brother. _ ”

Thor got up in his face as he’d done countless times when they were children. “She is an innocent, Loki. Not used to the ways of a trickster like yourself. You should watch where you tread.”

Loki let his gaze flick down Thor’s body as if he were an irritating gnat. “You should watch where  _ you _ tread. Brother.” He set the cereal bowl down and folded his arms over his chest. “Your little scientist put you up to this, did she?” He asked, deliberately needling Thor. He rather liked Jane, she had a keen intellect and a sharp wit, but the low blow would certainly rub his brother the wrong way.

“Do not bring Jane into this.”

Loki scowled. “Or you’ll do what? Run to father?”

“Loki.” Thor took a step back, raking a huge hand through his mane of hair. “This is serious. She is not a  _ thrall _ to be toyed with.”

“I  _ know  _ that!” Loki snapped, slamming his hand down on the counter, so hard the bowl of cereal teetered a little. “Believe me. I think of little else but how fragile she is, day to day. How each moment with her is precious because of how few she is granted.” He looked away from his brother’s face, blinking hard to clear his suddenly wet eyes. “I love her, Thor.” 

Thor set his hands on his hips and smiled broadly. “Yes. I know.”

“You  _ know? _ ” Loki stared at the broader man, suddenly realising that he might have been… tricked. 

“Doesn’t feel so good on the other foot, mmm, brother?” Thor asked, his eyes dancing. “I merely wanted to hear you say it.”

“I hate you,” Loki muttered, but without any real heat behind the words.

******

If he thought the gauntlet was over, he’d have been wrong.

He was next ambushed in the gymnasium by Stark. The overdressed ape wore sunglasses.  _ Inside. _ The man was ludicrous. Not even the Gods knew why he had been chosen for those Burberry advertising campaigns. 

Loki rolled his eyes as he pulled himself up over and over on the chin-up bar installed on the far side of the plush gym.

“Hey, Rock of Ages. You got five?”

Loki didn’t dignify that with a response.

Stark ambled over to the chin up bar. “You hear me, Reindeer Games?”

Since the quickest way to stop Stark’s mouth moving would be to grasp him by the throat and slam him into the ground, or listen, Loki chose the latter, as he assumed that his love would not be best pleased to find her employer hospitalised. “What do you want, Stark?”

Tony settled down on one of the wooden benches and looked up at Loki as he continued his workout.

“I’ll cut to the chase. I want to know your intentions t’ward Spoons.”

Loki paused mid chin-up. “Last I heard, Stark, you were not her father.”

Stark sighed. “Don’t give me that shit. You think you’re it, don’t you? And hell, maybe you  _ are. _ Spoons has been walking around lately like she’s just won a lifetime pass to Disneyland. She’s  _ happy. _ How the hell  _ you _ made that happen I’ll never know, and I don’t wanna know. But….”

Letting his hands drop, Loki slid his fingers into the pockets of the black zipped sweatshirt he wore and faced Tony. “Out with it then, Midgardian. I shall clearly get no peace until you have said yours.”

Tony slid his sunglasses off and got right in Loki’s face. “Well. Did she fill ya in?”

“On what, exactly?”

"Do you know what is wrong with her?" 

Loki snarled. "I tire of this, Stark. Nothing is  _ wrong  _ with her." 

"You know what I mean, Rock of Ages,” Stark snapped. "She has degenerative disc disease. The discs of her spine are drying up, disintegrating. Dying. One by one. This is it for her. You're getting her at the best she's ever going to be, unless medicine can catch up to it. We're working on it, but the nerves are something you don't play around with."

Loki opened his mouth, but then shut it again. Having it put so baldly into words made him ache for her. In a way that his heart hadn’t hurt in some time. In fact, some days, before she’d come into his life, he’d started to wonder if his heart still worked at all. If it was even still there, if it functioned beyond keeping him alive, day to day.

She had literally breathed new life into his body, at a time when he’d been ready to lie down and give in.

“I owe you  _ nothing _ , Stark. Not a single insight into what we share. It is ours and ours alone, and I will not soil her, or what we have, by inviting you to tear it apart and study it under your microscope.”

Stark stepped back, and to Loki’s surprise, a smile tugged at his bearded mouth. “You  _ do  _ love her, Reindeer Games.”

“Seven  _ hells. _ Is it that hard to deduce? Are  _ all _ Midgardians idiots, or is it simply living in Stark Tower that kills your brain cells off?” Loki demanded, stalking past the shorter man.

He pretended he did not hear Stark chuckling as he slammed closed the gymnasium doors.

******

In the library, after a shower, Loki found Stephen Strange waiting for him. The tall wizard slouched against one of the tall bookcases, wearing his dark blue tunic. His cloak was nowhere to be seen, off making mischief, Loki presumed. He liked the enchanted object but it tended to stay away from him. Strange’s orders, he imagined.

“Norns, what do  _ you _ want?” Loki demanded, dropping on to a wine red chesterfield by the library fireplace. The room was huge, sprawling, decorated like a gothic romance. Stark never did anything by halves. “Primed to deliver another lecture?”

“A lecture?” the man drawled, arching a dark eyebrow. “Hardly. I’m not your father.”

“Finally, one of you with a little sense.” Loki leaned back on the chesterfield and closed his eyes. 

Strange came to sit on the other end of the leather couch. “I’ve seen your future, heir to Jotunnheim. I’ve seen them all, in fact.”

Loki opened his eyes. For a moment his heart leapt into his throat. “Impossible,” he scoffed.

“Yeah. I thought so too, once.”

The quiet admission from the sorcerer had Loki re-evaluating the man. “And?” he asked, barely breathing.

“ _ If _ you give her the apple, it won’t cure her. It’ll simply slow the process. She will live as she is, only longer.”

Loki released the breath he didn’t know he’d been holding. “That is what I want,” he said eventually. “She does not  _ need _ to be cured. I only want more time. As much time as I can get.”

The wizard’s sea blue eyes searched his for a moment that stretched before he nodded, having apparently seen whatever he’d come for. “All is as it should be, then.”

As the fire in the library snapped at the logs, Loki listened to Strange’s departing footsteps, and gazed at the flames for a long time, lost in thought.

  
  
  
  



End file.
